Buying Internet leads from Lead
Generation service providers - Best
Practices

Internet Leads are
leads are generated by third party service providers
using website landing pages, signup forms, quote request
forms and co-registration processes. Obviously everyone
cannot generate web leads online, as it takes lots of
efforts in terms of money and time. Especially for
professionals and small businesses, focusing on internet
lead generation may become a distraction from the
business! Buying internet generated leads from
professional demand generation companies is a viable and
easy option.

The following
lead types / industry segments are the most commonly
involved in lead selling / buying practices.
However, it can be applied to any industry or niche
segments. Companies such as LendingTree and LowerMyBills
popularized the lead generation and selling practice.
Many new lead companies are getting into additional
market segments.

If you are buying sales leads
generated by 3rd party service providers, you should
know what you are doing. Unless you understand the
process and follow the best practices, you will loose a
lot of money and hurt your business. Following are some
of the important factors that you should take into
consideration:

Exclusivity of Leads: Lead
suppliers offer exclusive and / or shared leads.
While exclusive leads are costly, the conversion
rates will be higher. On the other hand, shared
leads are supplied to more than one lead buyer/
client, and hence the competition is stuff. Also,
the sales person who made the first contact has a
higher chance of winning the deal.

Delivery of Leads: The
leads should be delivered to you in real-time. If
not, you will lose out; this is especially important
for shared leads, as the leads are delivered to more
than one buyer.

Quality of Leads: There is
a great variation in quality of leads provided by
internet lead generation service providers.
Depending on the methods and practices used to
capture prospect information, the lead quality may
be high or low. Some providers follow unhealthy lead
generation practices and try to make a quick buck.
You should stay away from such leads. Note that it
is not easy to identify the lead quality upfront.
For example, you should avoid buying leads generated
with incentives tied to the promotion. Also, lead
profile information such as email address, phone
number, physical address, etc. could be bogus. The
lead company should employ various quality
improvement methods to capture the right leads.

Price of Leads: The cost
at which you are buying the leads is an important.
This directly ties into your Lead Conversion rate.
Volume buying may reduce the lead cost
significantly, but increase the risk if you are not
able to follow-up promptly and covert the prospects
to sales and customers.

Lead Buying Best Practices

In order to gain the maximum benefits
out of the internet leads, you must identify and follow
the best practices. Here are some key indicators:

Identify the right lead
companies and service providers.

Evaluate lead generation
methods and practices employed by the lead
companies.

Do research about your
industry segment on the Internet and compare various
lead providers.

Avoid suspicious / fly-by-night
operators

Analyze their landing pages
and lead capture web sites

Ask for genuine referrals.
You should compare similar leads. For example, if
you are buying shared leads and comparing with
referral who buy exclusive leads, then there is no
meaning in it.

Make sure that the leads are
delivered in real time.

Automate your lead capture
process by choosing a suitable internet lead
capture, tracking and management system, such as
LeadPro247.

Avoid manual entry of leads
received from Lead Sellers. Establish direct
interfaces or other automated processes, so that you
need not wasting time in entering leads received via
email alerts.

Send a drip email message to
the prospect immediately after receiving the
lead in your lead database system. Include your
personal information such as name, address, and
phone numbers in the email.

Attempt to contact the lead as
soon as you receive the leads. This is very
important if you are buying shared leads. Examples
are insurance industry, mortgage industry, debt
service industry, etc. You may use automated
dialers, text-to-speech tools, etc.

If you are buying internet leads or
planning to get into the buying practice, please get in
touch with us. We will evaluate your system requirements
and configure LeadPro247 lead system to suit your
requirements. Please note that we do not generate leads
or sell leads. We help integrate the lead sellers and
lead buyers.